Good News for a Secretive Plant

FEDERAL REGULATORS have recently determined that the Furbish lousewort, named for Brunswick botanist Kate Furbish, is recovering in its northern habitat, so they have officially changed its status from endangered to threatened.

The lousewort, a rare flower that only grows in damp, shaded areas along a 140-mile section of the St. John River in Maine and Canada, has been teetering on the edge of survival for several decades. Since 1978, it has languished on the federal list of endangered species (it was, in fact, one of the first plants to be added).

In this way, the secretive plant—which has only a single pollinator, the half-black bumblebee— managed to stop the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam project. The dam would have flooded 88,000 acres, including habitat for the lousewort, and Congress canceled the project in 1981.

The lousewort is also exceptional in another way: it is one of the few plants named for a woman. When Furbish, on one of her rigorous field expeditions across the state, discovered the flower growing along the riverbank in 1880, she recognized that no other Western scientist had yet identified it as a unique species.

She was pleased to accept a Harvard botanist’s suggested name in her honor, Pedicularis furbishiae, for, she wrote at the time, “I can find no plants named for a female botanist in your manual.” (The lousewort portion of the name comes from local people’s mistaken notion that the flower contained lice.)

Kate Furbish is beloved in Brunswick for her pioneering spirit and her elegant scientific illustrations (a local elementary school and a nature preserve are named for her). To document and collect specimens, she bucked decorum for women of her era and traveled throughout Maine by stagecoach, rail, boat, and foot. Many of the thousands of intricate, accurate, and beautiful drawings she made of plants and mushrooms are protected in the Bowdoin library’s archive. In 2016, the library partnered with Rowman & Littlefield to publish a complete two-volume edition of her artwork.

The recent reclassification of Furbish lousewort has sent ripples across Maine and through conservation organizations. “Though the Furbish lousewort is not completely out of danger, scientists say the reclassification is an encouraging sign that the rare plant is on the road to recovery,” the Portland Press Herald reported on May 9.

In a quote to the paper, conservation biologist Tierra Curry said, “As we fight the escalating extinction crisis, it’s important to celebrate conservation successes for all the little species that make up life on Earth.”

DID YOU KNOW?

A method of preparing fish or meat in Japanese cuisine is called tataki. The difference between tataki and sashimi is that sashimi is raw and cut in a very precise way, and tataki is marinated and seared so that the outside is cooked and the inside is raw.

Dine

Salmon Tataki

Recipe by Cizuka Seki ’99

Cizuka’s restaurant has several notes for us cooks: First, the cheapest sake is best for cooking. Second, shiso is an invasive plant, so you might be able to find it in all kinds of places, but if you can’t find it or if you want a substitute, you can use cilantro. Finally, this dish can be assembled and kept in the fridge well before serving, but don’t add the garlic chips until the last minute since they will get soggy.

½ cup soy sauce

½ head of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced, divided

1 teaspoon sugar, or more to taste

2 tablespoons mirin

2 tablespoons sake

3 tablespoons neutral oil or olive oil, divided

3 to 4 scallion stalks

3 to 4 shiso leaves

5 ounces fresh salmon (tuna is also great)

Combine the soy sauce, half the garlic, sugar, mirin, and sake in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low and simmer for ten minutes, until the garlic has infused the soy sauce. Add more sugar if you like a slightly sweeter sauce. Add one tablespoon of the oil. Set aside to cool thoroughly.

Slice the scallions at an angle and place them in a bowl of ice water to crisp up for a few minutes, and then drain and dry them and set aside. Finely julienne the shiso by rolling the leaves into a tight cigar shape and slicing them as thinly as possible, then set aside. Add a tablespoon of the oil to a sauté pan that is large enough to hold the salmon, then heat until shimmering. Add the other half of the garlic and sauté until nicely browned, being careful not to burn the slices. Remove the garlic slices from the oil and drain them on a paper towel. Return the pan to the heat.

Brush the salmon with the remaining olive oil, add it to the hot pan, and sear the salmon on all sides. The sear does not need to be a hard sear or browned significantly. Remove the pan from the heat.

To assemble, slice the salmon against the grain into bite-size pieces, ensuring that each piece has some sear and some raw center. Fan the slices of salmon out on a plate. Whisk the sauce to make sure the oil is well incorporated, drizzle the sauce over the salmon, and scatter the scallion, shiso, and garlic chips on top of the dish and serve.

Cizuka Seki ’99 owns Izakaya Seki in Washington, DC, with her father. Since opening in 2012, the restaurant has been as high as #7 and lowest at #22 in The Washington Post’s “Fall Dining Guide” and was most recently included in The New York Times’ “2022’s Top Restaurant Dishes” for a mushroom dish.

Did You Know?

Agility work combines running, jumping, climbing, and weaving— all at top speed—and many different breeds can fly around the course. Dogs love doing it, and they love the rewards, like playing with a special toy. Or getting a meatball!